Medicare for all will improve care, save billions

United States health care is currently at a tipping point. If ObamaCare is to be repealed, it should be replaced by improved and expanded Medicare for all.

Health care should not be dependent on the free market, income, race, gender, political party or any other status of the human condition. Health care costs should not force anyone into bankruptcy because of serious illness. The quality of health insurance should not determine whether people live or die. Health care should not be designed to make huge profits for multi-billion dollar insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, and medical equipment suppliers. Health care is not a commodity to be bought and sold.

The purpose of any sane health care system is to keep people well, not to make stockholders wealthier. Our current system is costly, bureaucratic, wasteful, and inefficient, ranking 37th in the world. Economist Gerald Friedman, PhD, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has done mountains of research on Medicare for all and concludes that expanded and improved Medicare for all would save $592 billion annually in health care costs, reduce drug costs $116 billion, and create savings enough to cover all 44 million uninsured and underinsured citizens.

HR 676 even provides $51 billion dollars for transition costs of displaced insurance and health care workers. HR 676 already exists as Rep. Conyer’s legislative bill, designated, “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All,” in the House of Representatives. It is time for Congress to act on HR 676. We must join together. The enactment of HR 676 is straight forward. We must get to work, get involved, speak out, take action, and make it happen. Join the national movement called, “Our Revolution,” to get it done. Remember, If you do not speak out against injustice, you are on the side of the opposition.